Echo
by Sela McGrane
Summary: Rory's scrawny legs were wrapped around his hips, and her fingers were interlaced around his neck, with her sharp featured face resting on his shoulder. Her dark hair was a mess after a long day of summer play, and on her lips was the first smile Hermione had seen on her face in almost four months.
**Not Telling Time, just a quite oneshot I felt compelled to write. Tissues are advised by my dear friend Holli.**

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Hermione McGonagall stopped short upon walking into her dimly lit kitchen, quickly backing into the shadow of the hallway to watch the scene unfolding. Tall and broad shouldered like his father, Hugo was dancing around the floor with his ten year old sister. Rory's scrawny legs were wrapped around his hips, and her fingers were interlaced around his neck, with her sharp featured face resting on his shoulder. Her dark hair was a mess after a long day of summer play, and on her lips was the first smile Hermione had seen on her face in almost four months.

Of her three children, Rory had taken Minerva's death the hardest. Part of that had been because she was still so young, and part was because Rose and Hugo had already lost one parent, so their step-mother's death, while difficult, was something familiar.

Rose was so much like her father in the manner that she chose to face her own grief in solitude, whereas Hugo was the more like herself, and he came around the house frequently to be a strong shoulder for Rory and herself. Though Hugo had been a grown man - almost twenty, when Rory had, to both Hermione and Minerva's great surprise, come along - he'd taken to being a big brother with all the joy he could muster. By then, Rose had already started her own family, and was not often available to her little sister.

Hermione supposed that Hugo understood how alone Rory felt right now. Ron had died a month after Rose had started her first year of Hogwarts - an accident with the Auror Department - and that left Hugo home with Hermione and very much isolated in his grieving process, not unlike Rory was now. Hermione had offered to bring Rose home from Hogwarts, but her daughter would hear nothing of it. She'd always been so damned strong.

It was Minerva who helped Rose grieve, then. Talking about how her daughter was coping had been the beginning of their friendship. It was five more years before their relationship evolved into something more, and another two years before either of them were willing to admit it. After that…

A sigh escaped her lips as she fought the tears threatening to escape as her mind drifted down memory lane. In the last four months, memory lane had been a rocky road, with signs at every turn of what was now lost to her.

The first time Minerva had kissed her, when they'd tripped over each other's feet trying to run from a surprise rain storm.

The day Hermione had realized she was in love, as she'd watched her daughter asking Minerva if she'd walk her down the aisle for her wedding to Teddy Lupin.

The evening they'd told Rose and Hugo they'd be getting a sibling, when the pregnancy had been discovered during a routine annual check up that Minerva _always_ insisted on coming to.

The wee hours of September first, almost eleven years ago now, when Rory Jean McGonagall had come screaming into the world, with startling green eyes, and curly dark hair. Hermione bit her lip, holding back a choked sob, as she remembered her wonderful wife spotting freckles on the newborn's cheeks - a feature she'd gotten from Hermione - and insisting that it was Rory's best feature.

For the next several minutes, Hermione watched as Hugo and Rory continued to dance. Her heart soared when Hugo interlaced on of his hands with one of his sister's, and then dipped her, eliciting a real, honest giggle from the little girl.

"Hugo!" she laughed.

"Don't blame me, Squirt," he replied with a grin. "I was under the influence of great passion!"

"You're silly!"

Despite her chastisement, she snuggled back into her brother's strong arms. They continued to dance for another few minutes, until a timer beeped, and Hugo set her down in order to get supper out of the oven. "You know, Rory," he said softly as she began reaching for dishes to set the table. "You were too little to remember, but right after Mum and Mother got together, Rose and I used to sneak out of bed to watch them dancing in the kitchen."

"Really?" she asked, looking pleased.

"Mother used to teach dancing to the students at Hogwarts," Hugo said with a nod. "Including Mum. I guess in some ways, they'd been dancing together for a lifetime, since before Mum was even with my dad."

"That's romantic," Rory decided. "You'll teach me to dance for real, right? When I'm bigger? I want to be able to dance like Mother."

"Of course, Squirt."

"It will be weird, going to Hogwarts and Mother not being there," Rory said after a moment of silence. "I wish she hadn't… I mean I wish she wasn't…"

Tears began to well in emerald eyes, and Hugo kneeled on the ground beside her. "It's okay to be sad," he whispered. "It's okay to cry. It's even okay to be angry - I know I was when my dad died. But don't be afraid to have fun and laugh and forget for a minute or two. She'd want that for you. She'd want you to move on."

"I don't want a new mother," Rory sniffled. "I think that's the worst part of the whole thing. I'm afraid I'll go to school, and when I come home Mum will have a new mother here because she was lonely without me! But she can't! She can't replace Mother!"

Hugo shook his head sadly. "Let me tell you a secret, kiddo."

"What?" Rory asked, looking a bit defiant through her tears.

"Minerva McGonagall was the love of Mum's life," the young man said. "Even though they weren't together like _that_ for a long time, their worlds revolved around each other from the day Mum set foot in Hogwarts. Yeah, Mum had my dad for a while there, and he was a good man, but he wasn't _her._ I don't think Mum will ever move on, not like that. She'll mourn and heal like all of us, but she'll find her joy in watching you continue to grow up, and one day start a family of your own. A part of her died with Mother, and you have to be fully alive to love in that sort of way."

"So I won't get a new mother?"

"I doubt it," he said sadly. "And besides, she won't be lonely. I'll be around so often that she'll be begging me to go back to my place just to get some peace and quiet!"

Rory offered half a smile for that, and then continued setting the table in silence, lost in her own thoughts, processing her brother's words.

Hugo _was_ right. There'd never be another partner. There'd never be a someone to touch her that way again, because despite the legal and moral freedom to move on, Hermione knew she couldn't. She couldn't grow accustomed to another's touch, because she feared it would make her forget how Minerva's fingers had felt ghosting across her skin, or Minerva's tongue tasting the deepest parts of her flesh, or Minerva's lips kissing her own, and each of those moments, time stopping.

Rory and Hugo dancing together was an echo of the life Hermione and Minerva had led; not just in the actual dance, per se, but in the way they were showing love. Rose and Rory had never been close, nor did Hermione expect they would ever be, at this point, but Hugo was Rory's rock, much like Minerva had been to herself. Hugo was her shoulder, her confidant, and the one she'd measure men against for the rest of her life. Likewise, Minerva had been all those things, and more, to Hermione.

Now, all that was left of the woman she'd loved was the memories of their lives, and the little girl now offering a stern glare that mirrored Minerva's, at the overhead fan which kept blowing the napkins out of place.

"Bugger," Rory said, knowing she could not reach the cord to turn it off.

Hermione stepped into the kitchen after casting a charm to erase the tears from her face, knowing that her own grief was not something her daughter needed to witness. Hugo had seen her tears, and would again, but he was a grown man, and she was so proud of him. While not a McGonagall by blood, he'd long since taken the name and Hermione hoped that he'd continue to be an echo of the woman who'd raised him when his own father could not, and Hermione prayed that he could do for Rory what Minerva had done for he and Rose, all those years ago.

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